It’s an almost impossible task to identify the most despicable sewer-dredging piece of “journalism” that the Scottish press has spewed out in the past 10 days or so of demented obsession with as-yet-unsubstantiated allegations by two unnamed women against Alex Salmond, but today’s Sunday Mail must be a strong contender.

The paper runs a four-page orgy of hypocritical moralistic shrieking based on Salmond’s outrageous and unacceptable behaviour in, um, thanking the people who donated to his crowdfunder to challenge the process by which the story was improperly leaked to the media. The monster.

And if you think that’s a ludicrously thin basis on which to create a front-page splash and three pages of screaming drivel inside, wait until you actually see some of it.

The main thrust of the lead story is that Salmond apparently hasn’t carefully scrutinised every single one of the 2,378comments (at the time of writing) posted on the fundraiser page, some of which are mildly disobliging about the anonymous accusers.

(The worst example the Mail can actually scrape up is “Kick their lying butts, Alex”, which the paper comically describes as “violent”.)

Therefore, his thanking of donors is bizarrely interpreted as an endorsement of every single individual comment and duly “slammed” as a crime against humanity by obscure Labour list MSP Rhoda Grant, as if anyone in human history had ever cared what Rhoda Grant thought about anything when she wasn’t fully occupied hiring Christian fundamentalists who think homosexuality is a disease.

But from that low starting point, the Mail somehow manages to sink further.

Next up is Monica Lennon, another Labour list MSP, who rages furiously at Salmond for crowdfunding the challenge on the grounds that somehow it will dissuade women who’ve been attacked from coming forward.

Quite how this ludicrous conclusion is reached isn’t explained by Lennon. The judicial review has nothing whatsoever to do with the allegations themselves. Whether Salmond wins or loses will have absolutely no impact on whether the allegations result in a prosecution, or what the outcome of that prosecution would be.

The review, in short, simply cannot POSSIBLY have any result that will reduce the ability of women to raise complaints.

The absurd excuse for this patently mad suggestion is that Salmond crowdfunding is a demonstration of his “power” that will frighten the complainers away, even though the money won’t be deployed against them in any way. (The opposing party in the review is the civil service/Scottish Government, not the two alleged victims.)

Even more weirdly, it’s simultaneously being insisted that Salmond is so rich he should be paying the costs of the review himself – something which if true would surely be a demonstration that he was MORE powerful, not less, and therefore even MORE evil. He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. It seems the only acceptable way for him to defend himself is to not defend himself at all.

But Lennon’s position is more cynical even than that. She herself claims to have been the victim of sexual assaults from a senior Labour colleague in 2013 – around the same time as Salmond’s alleged misdeeds – but still refuses to identify the alleged perpetrator, leaving them at large to present a threat to other women.

Lennon says she didn’t pursue a complaint because “she felt she would not be believed”, which seems to obviously be a much more damaging and offputting message to send to victims than people choosing to donate money to Alex Salmond for something else entirely.

After all, if even a relatively powerful figure like an MSP with a considerable public platform and a supportive media isn’t prepared to take that risk, then it wouldn’t be unreasonable for ordinary women to assume they had even less chance of success.

Which makes these lines all the worse:

“Drowning out the #MeToo movement and undermining investigations is an awful look for Scotland, sending a damaging message to women who might have experienced unacceptable behaviour that they shouldn’t, or needn’t, bother coming forward with complaints about powerful men.”

There isn’t a single word of that sentence that isn’t nonsense. How can Salmond raising money for a judicial review into a legal process “drown out the #MeToo movement”? Only the media can do that, by focusing endlessly on the crowdfunder instead of anything else.

How on Earth can the way he funds his defence “undermine investigations”? Will the police go “Oh, Salmond’s paid for a judicial review thanks to public donations, so there’s no point in us even looking at the evidence”? Of course they won’t. The two things are completely mechanically unconnected.

Why would any of it send a message to women that they shouldn’t come forward? Only Lennon has said anything like that, by not pressing her own case because she thought it wouldn’t be believed. Yet nobody had taken out a crowdfunder over it. She’s simply told women that it’s not worth bothering whether that happens or not.

Remarkably, though, the Sunday Mail has even less grasp of basic logic (or how crowdfunders work) than Lennon does. An atrocious editorial leader alongside Lennon’s column cranks the stupidity up to 11.

Firstly, of course, a minor point which appears to have escaped the ostensible newspaper is that Alex Salmond ISN’T actually a politician. He isn’t an MP or an MSP and he holds no office in the SNP. He’s a TV presenter. He has absolutely no power whatsoever to effect political change any more.

But the notion that crowdfunding is somehow only available to the rich might be the most obviously cretinous idiocy yet aired in this entire situation. The entire POINT of crowdfunding is that anyone can do it, regardless of wealth or fame, and by doing so gain access to justice that would otherwise have been out of their reach.

The Orkney Four were neither wealthy nor famous nor powerful when they raised over £200,000 to tackle Alistair Carmichael in court. Catalan minister Clara Ponsati had never been heard of in Scotland when the Spanish government tried to persecute her and ordinary citizens again raised over £200,000 for her defence.

Salmond quite plainly HAS “dealt with the Scottish legal system in the same way the rest of us have to”, because the rest of us are just as able to launch a crowdfunder (and for anything, not just court costs) as he is.

Indeed, this site did exactly that to help with our legal costs for a defamation case against Kezia Dugdale when she made outrageous false allegations in… the Sunday Mail’s own weekday sister paper, the Daily Record.

And the big juicy cherry on the massive irony cake is that Kezia Dugdale’s costs in defending that case are being paid by someone else.

NOT by an open public crowdfunder, where thousands of ordinary people kick in a modest few quid of their own free will, not even out of the money she grabbed by leveraging her modest fame and power to abandon her constituents and go on a celebrity TV show, but by a shady backer who hasn’t been officially identified, isn’t answerable to anyone, and isn’t available to ordinary members of the public.

The levels of hypocrisy in the Mail’s coverage in particular are almost off the scale, but Scottish Labour (whose track record of pursuing its own harassers is dismal beyond belief) give the paper a real run for its money. We wish there was any reason to believe anything was going to improve, in any sense at all.

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146 to “The Filth”

This is why I stopped buying ’news’ papers… I only started buy a paper when the National came out, and, with the launch of the Sunday National, I’ll be buying that too… The Scottish media should be ashamed to call themselves journalists and reporters

I never fail to be amazed by the people who hate our country and those who work to build a better future for us all.

But on a brighter note, no matter how vile, how obscene their comments or behaviour is towards anyone in the indepencence movement, I always keep in mind that they will soon become part of our past. Relics of a broken malicious United Kingdom.

I look forward to that. The future is bright and we have much to look forward to. Here’s to us!

If Mr Salmond or anyone in the SNP had been raising money for a world disaster, the media would still condemn him/them at every chance.
On WoS we constantly refer to the MSM as gutter press, I am now of the belief they have sunk to depths unknown to the human race.
The witch hunt against Mr Salmond and now the people who have donated to his crowd funder is basically embarrassing.
Is the mind-set of “Joe Public” that pathetic that they actually buy into this, if so? the country is beyond repair.

So women will only come forward with claims of sexual harassment or whatever, IF the man in question is named in public first??
That can’t be fair or equal. And I’m a woman.

If the law is that those who make a complaint should remain anonymous, then the law should also be that the accused remain anonymous too. If they are then found guilty then they should be named and shamed. If they are not found guilty then that should be the end of it.

The fact that this was leaked to the press should be investigated and someone, no matter who or how high in the civil service should be prosecuted for this leak.

Awful, I have checked the dear Rhoda a d warned her she may have breached ethics and standards of Scottish Parliament. I have kept the evidence and may wait till Holyrood elections in 2021 to make the complaint.
She has typically of Slab ignored my threats of reporting.

Today’s rag and the disgusting filth on which Stu comments is a perfect illustration of just how terrified the Britnats are of Indyref2.

For several months earlier this year The Record and Mail while having previously strongly opposed Indy seemed to change tack and while not supporting Indy certainly appeared to be reasonably unbiased on the subject.

The Mirror group having digested Dirty Desmond’propaganda rags took their own Record/Mail by the throat and embarked a few weeks ago on a hysterical rant fest against Indy and The SNP in particular leading up to today’s disgusting Fake News Fest.

Could it be that the period of apparent lack of bias was to attract back indy supporting readers and set them up for their current attempt to destroy the Indy movement?

Of course the timing is perfect as with today being an Old Firm match day the paper will be full of Old Firm mince guaranteeing a higher circulation than usual.

Does anybody have a picture of Eck’a ‘mansion’ as it is described in said article?

Is it too much to expect that Stu’s demolition of the article could be carried in full in tomorrow’s The National?

Perfidious Albion is certainly demonstrating its fear of indy and is showing the depths to which it will descend to maintain it imperial rule over Scotland.

Julius Streicher would be proud of today’s reincarnation of Der Sturmer.

Everything that is being said and reported is not motivated by stupidity or ignorance its all wilful deliberate and calculated.
Its a witch hunt conspiracy perpetrated by the UK state and establishment coordinated by a willing media.
The ramped up hysteria and the over the top publicity is testament to that. There are so many pending political sex accusation scandals ongoing right now yet ALL of them have been removed from public view except the Alex Salmond accusation. Even the proven cases have been removed from the public sphere the child sex crime allegations removed.
A single media focus with a river of political opinion thrown in for good measure and front page headline to keep the kettle boiling over for as long as possible.
Im hoping the transparency of what is going on is obvious to even those who oppose everything Alex Salmond supports and has worked for.
Im hoping this all backfires spectacularly even if Alex Salmond is found to have behave inappropriately.
Whatever else happens the media and UK state have soiled themselves to the point where Alex Salmonds guilt or innocence is no longer relevant in terms of how accusations of this nature are handled.
If the UK media and UK state don’t treat ALL such accusations with the same gusto then clearly there is no concern at all for the victims be they the accusers or the accused.

How often SLab think they are capturing the moral high ground only to find themselves disappearing into a sinkhole.

I have contributed to several crowd funds for people who have to represent their case in court which they could not otherwise afford. Andy Wightman, for example, would no longer be able to be a MSP if bankrupt. But whether he wins or loses, his costs will be enormous.

Only wealthy people can go to court.

Alex Salmond has done the right thing. He is entitled to challenge the process which has seen his reputation damaged in the media. That would ensure that anyone else in that position would be treated fairly.

We are entitled to contribute to any fund or campaign which we support.

Hold on just a minute folks, we on here are criticising the newspapers for doing what exactly?

The Newspapers are businesses owned for the most part by rich Tories who live outside Scotland.

These businesses are used to promote the interests of the owners they dont appear to be great profit making enterprises.

The newspaper businesses have to pull in some business to keep things funded, step forward HM Government who through the amazing democracy payments are throwing quite a bit of funding at the newspapers.

He who pays the piper calls the tune, the newspapers are only promoting the interests of their owners and serving one of their main customers, the Regime, both sets of interests include attacking the Scottish government and Scotland.

They are only doing their jobs just following orders you understand.

The apparent madness in what they print will get worse/ increasingly hilarious depending on your point of view as the Scottish people increasingly wake up to the disaster that is this union.

For as long as I can remember the English Nationalist/British Nationalists/Westminster Establishment has fostered the concept that culminates in, “Better Together”.

This, “Better Together”, concept being that The Kingdom of Scotland, the only partner kingdom in the two partner United Kingdom has always, since 1 May 1707, been treated by, “The Westminster Establishment as not actually a kingdom partner but as another subservient country that England had annexed, (i.e. not united with but been subsumed by the, three country, Kingdom of England).

Now the actual legal position is that on the last day of April 1707 the parliament of the Kingdom of England ended itself by permanently going into recess. There has thus never been an elected Parliament of either the country or the kingdom of England ever since.

On 1 May 1707 what sat in the Palace of Westminster was the totally new Parliament of the two partner United Kingdom and each partner kingdom in that parliament were legally equally sovereign kingdom partners.

Yet that is not how the new parliament began on day one. For it began as the Parliament of The Kingdom of England had ended with the addition of some Scottish Members from the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland who were treated as being only observers and, of course, an influx of Scottish Lairds to the Westminster House of Lords.

It has never been a parliament that was, “Better Together”, for the Scots but was most certainly much better for the, now legally non-existent, Parliament of the Kingdom of England who immediately relegated the Kingdom of Scotland to the same status of the two Kingdom of England dominion countries of Wales and Ireland.

Yet here we are in 2018 with Westminster, (while still claiming to be the United Kingdom Parliament), is acting as the de facto, unelected as such, parliament of the country of England that has assumed itself to be sovereign over its three subservient dominions of the countries of Scotland, Wales and what is left of the country of Ireland.

If you need proof of that reality then consider what the use of EVEL means in reality. Devolution has divided the two partner United Kingdom up along country lines with Westminster thus illegally devolving English powers down to three subservient dominions of the country of England while still claiming to be a, “United Kingdom”.

These two concepts simple cannot exist together at the same time. So the Kingdom of Scotland, where the people are legally sovereign, must decide, by a democratic majority. if it wants to remain as now, a subservient dominion of the country of England, or to tell Westminster that Westminster, by Westminster’s actions, has ended the United Kingdom.

Furthermore we do not require Westminster’s permission to do so for the people of Scotland are legally sovereign and the Westminster Supreme Court has recently already ruled that Scots law is still independent and thus still sovereign.

Want to know the truth? In my 80 odd years on Earth I have never actually seen any actual case made for being, “Better Together”. I have though long ago lost count of the countless claims made, without proofs, that we are.

In the event of any accusation of sexual abuse going to court are the accusers still able to remain anonymous?

comment on Herald
‘But, that’s Salmond’s plan isn’t it.
These women’s physical safety, indeed their lives, would be at risk if their names were made public. And forget all this nonsense about reporting restrictions. It take only one nat to find out and that’s it for them.’

There is a bit of a theme developing in the posts by the BritNats on The Herald.

Could this develop into accusers drop charges due to fear for their lives?

It has been my impression since the beginning of Eckgate that the leaking and subsequent media fest was a deliberate strategy to achieve the maximum publicity and damage to Eck and The SNP with the main aim being to prejudice the fairness of any trial making it impossible to bring charges while leaving the suspicions on the table to run and run for ages in the media as happened with Michelle Thomson.

The old ‘No smoke without fire trick’.

Remember the days when the accused used to be smuggled into court with a coat over their head to prevent media identification.

The outdoor type, a fisherman, a bagger of Munros
What else he did whilst in these hills, God could only know
Around his neck, he’d a piece of rope and from it hung his phone
A smile that would melt the hardest heart that only he could own
A friend to all who’ve gathered here and many more beside
The very name of, Scotland’s son, belongs to Mitch Kilbride.
He climbed these hills so many times, and here, in his favourite place
We throw his ashes as he wished, and his lochan he will grace.
A journalist held in the highest esteem with a reputation to uphold
But the scripts he wrote, for all of us, were worth their weight in gold,
A real scholar and a gentleman, the most respected man I knew
And even now we’re here at his request, he’s still telling us what to do!
But here at last, he will be free, the pain has finally gone
And this man o’ Independent mind will see Scotland’s brand new dawn
Tartan blood ran through his veins, he’d a Saltire for a heart
And the hardest thing in being a friend is when you have to part.
He battled hard his whole life through, fighting just like you and me
And he hopes you’ll never stop that fight until Scotland is, at last, free.
But Mitch was not a sombre man and would insist today is fun
Celebrating what he done in life and all the friendships won.
He will live on within us, he will never go away
So let’s raise a toast to our friend Mitch for Independence Day.

That the very idea of Independence is, once again, under attack isn’t in doubt. It’ll be interesting, therefore, to see what impact all of this lurid and highly personalised muck-slinging has on Scottish public opinion.

Given how ethically and morally flawed, not to mention contradictory, the media’s case actually is, I’m of the opinion that people, if they haven’t already done so, will grow weary of this over-sustained nonsense in a very short space of time.

To coin a phrase form Peter Bells – “science has yet to measure how little I care” – about the MSM & BBC and all their arse lickers.

If any of them had an “IQ above room temperature” (thanks to Christian Wright) they would realise what Alex is doing is a good thing in challenging the process in order that it is fair for all in the future.

I am reminded of the Spanish Inquisition when I see on a stand in the local supermarket the lurid headlines in most of the Press. Because that is what it’s like – condemned and damned just because they can.And absolutely no concern whatsoever for the families of those they are plastering across their pages.

British Nationalist logic, we’re right and you’re wrong even when you’re not you must be destroyed

Truth is what we say it is, democracy is what we say it is
British Nationalism brooks no debate, no presumption of innocence no memory of its own indescretions, might is right

Is the plot to make us angry enough to do what they hope and lose the plot giving them the ammunition to find us all guilty of our own existence, they did it in England and got people killed using this same bilious vomitous newspapering tactic

This is the Nigel Farage of newspapering the dredging of the depths of humanity to incite a response so they can condemn the response they seek to incite then shrug their shoulders blamelessly when some enraged individual makes the wrong choice and does something stupid

This behaviour by newspapers must be publicly condemned by those right thinking people who have the position to do so and they’d better do it soon

Let’s get one thing absolutely straight here an accusation has been made, no one is physically injured no one has lost their livelihood no one is dead, the accusation is one of a man touching a woman innapropriately with no witnesses no recording no CCTV no physical evidence of any kind just one persons word against that of another yet this preponderance of overwhelming non evidence has led the British media to accuse judge then jury it as guilty as hell all by themselves

What’s the point of having law courts at all when the media can behave in this way, it’s bad enough the media attempt to run our parliament without standing for election but when they interfere in the undertakings of legal proceedings this must be a matter for our highest legal authorities to shut these newspapers interventions down and perhaps Police Scotland should be looking at the laws of incitement while they’re at it

Robert J Sutherland @ 1.15
Well aye Robert….
She is of course entitled to handle whatever happened to her in her own way.
But to be pontificating to and about others, must be challenged.

Is she aware that a new process that’s been introduced might help her?
Does she understand that this process is to be scrutinised by the highest court in the land?
Why does she not think this is a good thing?
Why is she not proud that People in their thousands thought so?
I will defend my right to contribute to something that defends my daughters and protects my son..
In fact my question would be who wouldn’t, we (the contributors) didn’t choose Alex Salmond, or this time to do so… but it needed doing whenever and however the opportunity presented itself,what’s her problem ? Has she no confidence in our Highest Court?
If the Court of Session improves the current and recently introduced procedure, will she rethink her options?

Because,if no to any of that… then mibbi she should, in the interests of women, rescues herself from the debate… we don’t need people with a platform undermining, our route to justice.

She is not one of mine, so I have not a thing to say about re-electing her as a caretaker of our interests.!!
But what I do have a say in is the system/ procedure that’s ment to protect me and mine.
Regardless of gender, victims or accusers!!!
I want “a procedure “ we need a “procedure “ but I want it to be the best that we can put in place.

What we absolutely do not need is any of this to be in the hands of the Media..
A Media who’s interest in her and her party probably played a part in her decision not to persue her own troubles???
There’s a world of difference between Private and sweeping under the carpet.
The analysis of the article above and the article itself, I would have said, does indeed call for Monica Lennon to make further comment as you said “put up or shut up”

I’m not in the least given to conspiracy theories, but I’m beginning to wonder if this confidentiality leak was not by any of the interested parties (complainants, civil service or AS), but by an outside party: the UK security services.

They would likely have been aware of the complaints, perhaps reckoned they wouldn’t amount to much if handled strictly according to procedure, and accordingly decided to leverage the situation to the max on their own account, with the ever-ready assistance of the press shark pack and the NSP (NorthBritLab Sanctimonious Party).

The latter unseemly coalition’s pushing of the issue goes far beyond mere reporting of the actual facts and well into an attempt at character assassination.

There is one thing in this whole sorry mess that is surfacing above the deep layer of shit that is United Kingdom/British/English politics.

This is that with each continued attempt by the Westminster Establishment and their propaganda wing to damage the independence movement the indy movement grows stronger and the Establishment’s efforts more and more spectacularly back fire upon the union.

I have long expected there would come a sharp tipping point where the whole false front of, “The Establishment”, that, like those old Wild West saloon multi-story false fronts that hid the squalid single story drinking dive behind, would collapse into the mud of what passed for the street was coming soon.

Is what we see now that tipping point?

Is there anyone left in Scotland who, in their heart of hearts, still really believes what they see, hear and read in the once popular medias? readership figures, viewing figures and listener figures suggest that the tipping point is near.

I cannot detect any signs that Mr Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon, The SG, SNP or the much wider Indy movement is other than becoming closer together while the Better Together movement gets more desperate by the minute. Will the big tipping point be as sudden as I expect it to be?

I think the simplest analysis of what the Mail has done is that they are absolutely raging at the way things are going.

The SNP are not in civil war and are taking the piss out of that claim with, what must said, a lot more humour and intelligence than you will see from any tabloid fakenews churnalist.

Salmond easily funded the JR with thousands of donations from well wishers. Most comments were along the lines of “for fairness”. There were nuts that donated a couple of quid so they could type abuse at Salmond and there were some that suggested a conspiracy. I am not sure that Alex would have sat and read all couple of thousand comments or at least not yet. I certainly haven’t.

Nicola is handling this very well and in a dignified manner and I don’t think anyone, least of all Alex, has suggested otherwise. Hence the contorted drivel that passes for some sort of logic from Monica in an attempt to try and tie Nicola into the investigation. It is pretty pathetic but she is hardly the sharpest plastic spatula in Labour’s drawer of useless kitchen implements.

There is a possibility that the police might decide that there is nothing they can investigate here. I think part of the screaming frenzy here is so that the Sunday Fail can blame the evil Nats for funding a JR if this fizzles out … as indeed the claims Monica and Kezia made fizzled out into nothingness.

Apologies for yet another rant from resident wings ranter but it is so cathartic to unload…please just scroll past if you cannot stomach yet another self indulgent sermon.

Have written the following comments on a previous thread but seems also pertinent to this one.

Yes Monica dobbed in one of her ain party.

However on Friday evening 24 August on Scottish news report she said to camera “SNP should suspend Alex salmond”.

Yep suspend Alex but NOT senior Labour colleague who groped her!

Sorry but if her position is that someone, from a rival party, should be suspended because of accusation then why should someone who she accuses as having groped her NOT be suspended or investigated indeed brought to account for what was clearly sexual harassment. So suggest Ms Lennon is being somewhat hypocritical and once again the media too for not highlighting in same report her past accusation on a colleague !

Ms Lennon has form in being duplicitous and like all of her colleagues never fails to be opportunistic when they see a situation that they can take advantage of politically.

————————————————————-

Since that television report has been aired and she has obviously seen that her double standards have been called out for her hypocritical position on this she has now , unwisely, adopted a new angle , courtesy of the Daily Hun’s sister paper, from the perspective of the crowdfund being an abuse of his position as someone well known…this of course is HER OPINION and not really an actual fact. Perception and the twisting of facts is a skill widely adopted by political opponents especially Labour in Scotland. This practice is dishonest and certainly is NOT displaying a kinder and new type of politics as called for by Oh Jeremy Corbyn.

Once again we are in the territory ,via this scenario, of words being cheap and actions speaking louder which is why Labour will never ever gain back those voters they have lost. Those voters have now had their eyes open and no longer do they support a party who seem to relish and endorse the promotion of gutter style tactics in political stunts that do absolutely nothing to enhance both trust and loyalty in both past and present voters of their party.

If Labour in Scotland are too dumb and determined not to evolve then they will forever be the losers because they are not convincing anyone that they are anything but a party devoid of decency and their constant involvement in promoting smears against the SNP is to their detriment NOT to their advantage. If they are oblivious of this then we on here, and many others, have obviously made the right choice in supporting other political parties.

Perhaps Labour, especially Monica, should consider another woman in all of this , and that is Alex Salmond’s wife who , thanks to Labour’s unhelpful participation in this smear campaign, is having to endure a constant onslaught of hate, innuendo and unproven accusations against her husband. But then that particular consideration, for Labour, is far too much a human perspective and would not suit their ultimate objective of destroying not only his life but ideally the fallout , as generated by them, in also ideally ensuring the destruction of the SNP. This in turn they hope will end the Independence campaign as like others they are blind to the fact that the Yes movement is not solely about supporting the SNP. Newsflash to Labour neither the Independence movement nor the SNP will be destroyed by this irrespective of how much crap you and your comrades in the media throw at it

Screw them all and let them continue to hammer the nails in their own coffins……… because this concerted attack is so obvious as to the real intended motive behind it….which will fail….. that it will at some point guarantee their own ultimate downfall and not that of THEIR chosen victim and that will be down to them and them alone.

Never forgive or forget Labour for this….no dignity , no class and no triumph will they gain from their over eager and active participation in this political persecution of someone who deserves so much better than this.

Robert Peffers @ 2.16
Well some would say you have waited an awful long time for our fellow Sotst to wake up Robert!!
But that might be calling ye Auld … which I of course would never do… LOL
In fact it’s usually you who does that!!!
We generally are conversing with the mind..so make no distinction…

Has anyone heard the result of the police enquiery into Davidson about telling the results of the postal votes live on air and before the postal votes,were even counted,they were taken to England to count as we were to stupid to count them ???

There are 4 or 5 stories on Salmond in the Guardian including todays from McKenna, and not one open to comment. Talk about insidious censorship! As for the gutter press we must be in contention for the world’s worst. Wings and The National have got an uphill battle on their hands but I think the time of oppressed Scots believing the worst in themselves is gone and have finally woken up to reality and what lies within their grasp

The more the msm and ML and KD go on the more unlikely it will ever be that there could ever be a fair trial. These are the two who would be screaming from the rooftops if the women involved had been dragged through the gutter press, but hey its ok its snp so thats alright then. Two hypocrites of the highest order and plenty more lurking in the labour ranks.

AS is probably doing every woman and man a favour questioning the process and hopefully making it fair for EVERYONE involved. Not once have they questioned the leaking of ‘confidential’ information or the smearing in the msm.

It may well be that a fair trial would now be impossible but that would suit them too because they think its job done – snp smeared and AS compromised and they will blame snp for that too and the crowdfunder but the press and they themselves will have done nothing wrong. We have the measure of them and their dirty tricks and their total hypocrisy.

Rape Crisis Scotland defending women’s rights not to name their accuser for fear of being judged. Surely if you were afraid of being judged you wouldn’t tell anyone at all? Yet Lennon has announced it but won’t name her attacker, who happens to be in the same political party, What sort of judgement are people to make of that?

“And the big juicy cherry on the massive irony cake” is the colossal hypocrisy of BLiS______d and the MSM. Luckily, this cake is making many people in Scotland sick, even people who are not naturally fans of AS or independence. As The Rev says, it is the likes of Lennon, Dugdale and Grant who are making things worse for women by covering up nasty behaviour in their own party.

Hysteria convinces very few people and the papers are making total dingbats of themselves. The positive results for us will be an increase in SNP membership and more marchers in Edinburgh next month.

There is an ongoing investigation. This outpouring of faux disgust and rage from the press is so out of proportion and so personal that you feel they have been waiting for something, anything to unleash it all. The double standards regarding other parties are glaring. You might almost think they know the other parties standards are so low we expect nothing less from them.

The whining about women coming forward – well if I knew the entire MSM, Civil Service and charities were all on my side why would I worry?

The procedure has been changed to make it as painless and easy as possible for complainants to come forward but still, this is not enough for them. The previous status of the man means he must be not allowed to use the means available to him.

Celebrity Big Brother has had an odd situation crop up with one of the contestants accusing the other of not only punching her with force but she has attributed motives to him that to the viewer and other housemates seem incomprehensible. She brought previous baggage and messy personal demons into ‘the house’.

We are seeing the personal baggage of the Scottish Press played out in front of us. The difference regarding CBB is the cameras saw it all. With Alex Salmond, we are being fed not only what the press wants us to know but how we are supposed to feel about it. How is that fair?

You incisively expose this press hypocrisy and wrongheadedness here, Rev. Also the Labour MSPs doublethink, of which I was not fully aware till now.

Is it only the fact that there is as yet no actual court case being brought against Alex Salmond – only allegations – that leaves papers free to blazon such openly-prejudicial material?

If, after the police finish looking into the unnamed women’s complaints, the Procurator decides there is a case to answer, what chance is there that any court case could be considered fair and unprejudiced? Mr Salmond would surely be able then to rightly claim he could not receive a fair hearing because of the overwhelmingly hostile press coverage beforehand.

If so, the press would then clearly be seen to have acted in a way hostile not only to Mr Salmond, but hostile to justice, hostile to these particular complainers, and hostile to the interests of anyone female or male who has experienced harassment and faces bringing it to light.

Would the law be able at that point to call these papers – their journalists, editors and (not least) proprietors – to account?

AS is probably doing every woman and man a favour questioning the process and hopefully making it fair for EVERYONE involved.

Exactly so. The process is new and untested, it’s in the public interest that it’s fair all round, so it might as well be shaken down now as later. Doing it via the courts is an expensive way to go about it, but it’s the only way available to all, and AS is well within his rights to try.

Why should he meekly lie down simply because it doesn’t fit the BritNat script? It’s good to see someone on the indy side taking the initiative for once and not simply passively reacting to events.

To attack Alex on the grounds that he oughtn’t to challenge the “natural order of things” (as if these media vipers were natural supporters of the Scottish Government =wink=) is a real giveaway. For all their fine words, these critics are clearly interested in neither fairness nor justice, only in prejudging and attacking a person who has done more for the people of Scotland than the whole rag-bag of these poisonous chatterers will ever do.

(Which they full well know, hence the vituperation.)

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, like you I can’t see it ever reaching a court now. The case has been poisoned beyond redemption by the media hatefest of the last few days. So much for upholding women’s rights. They have been weaponised and trashed by the British Nationalist faction.

But hopefully more and more ordinary people will see this and draw the correct conclusions from this unseemly behaviour.

O/T Saw something on the pub tv at midday.It was Gordon Brown ranging up and down like a whatsit as he did before the Indy Ref but he was on about the manse and Jerusalem and the holocaust. Is he going to topple Corbyn and run for PM?

It did not make much sense of it but I could hardly tell a pub to shoosh to make sense of it. Anyone know what he was on about.

Perhaps this has been answered before on here, I may have missed it, but is it unusual to make a workplace complaint if the accused has already left that employment ?
I imagine you might raise the matter if you intended to sue the employer for some lack of oversight perhaps, but I don’t know what the realistic outcomes in such an investigation could be.
I hope the Judicial Review proceeds & light can be shone on these matters.

So bot means highly motivated activists in the Indy movement. I imagined it meant some sort of totally automated post generator in some lair run by the CIA, GCHQ, the Kremlin or the Illuminati … or something similar.

A cracking article Stew,
You’ve very accurately put into words, what we are all thinking, but YOU have the means to make them public !, and to do so as quickly as possible, as I commented last month, the rebuttal to these type of attacks MUST come quickly,so I endorse every word you use, as for Monica Lennon, I’ve wondered for a long,long time why she was not pressed by the media on her admission of being sexually molested, then I remembered she’s a Labour M.S.P. and the press protects them from public scrutiny!!.

The bottom feeders in the cesspit that is the unionist media have at last broken through and are heading towards the light. It is a red and glowing light and, what’s that?, can I hear demonic laughter in the distance?

“Perhaps this has been answered before on here, I may have missed it, but is it unusual to make a workplace complaint if the accused has already left that employment?”

I haven’t seen this point raised here before but I had also thought about it myself. The new procedure giving guidance on how complaints about Ministers or Former Ministers should be handled seems like a reasonable thing to do.

I would have thought though that any complaints against Former Ministers would only have been investigated by the employer, in this case the Civil Service, if the Former Minister was still an MSP and would likely still come into contact with employees of the Civil Service through their work.

Once a former Minister has ceased to be an elected official and could not meet civil servants in any kind of working capacity why would the Civil Service investigate other than to hopefully prevent such situations occurring in future?

I guess one possible reason is that anyone found to have breeched the standards of acceptability in their workplace as a Minister could be reported to their party leader and it would be up to them whether or not to take any action such as suspend their membership or throw them out altogether.

That would appear to be the limit of any possible sanction. Unless of course it was decided that a criminal offence may have happened and it then became a police and Justice matter to conduct an entirely separate investigation after the complaint has been reported to them.

Here’s an article showing the continuing decline in Scottish “Newspaper” Sales. Most encouraging – and there is an argument to stop calling them MSM, as there is less and less “mainstream” about them. I’m thinking Wings is more “mainstream” than some of the titles, given the circulation figures!

O/T slightly , Just watched broadcast Scotland with 2 SNP figures and Pat Kane and I am completely confused , it appeared to be a Jeremy Corbyn love fest with exhortations about how righteous and honourable Jeremy is , is this the same person who backed then ignored the tories austerity policies , is this the same Jeremy and his supporters and members who support and encourage any other country to become independent but deny Scotland and Scots the same right .

Also Anne McLauchlan ex SNP MP was encouraging and reminding people to vote SNP that in the event of a GE and Corbyn won it would enable the SNP to be the power behind the throne ,

Obviously forgetting the denigration and demonisation the indy movement and Alex Salmond has suffered from the corrupt and rancid Labour fraternity

My confusion is rooted in the belief that I supported and voted for the SNP to give Scotland and Scots the best and only ( currently ) chance to become independent , not to become or remain a prop for the despicable Labour party to gain power.

I don’t care how righteous Mc Lauchlan , Kane or Libby Mc Arthur thinks Jeremy is , I do not support and vote SNP to enable continued decimation and destruction of Scotland by anyone or any political party , and I am extremely concerned that Mc Lauchlan’s views are widespread within the SNP’S hierarchy
I hope I misinterpreted the views espoused during the broadcast but I remain sceptical

It is easy to forget sometimes that Labour politicians and their supporters are dimwits and we should not expect too much from them. They are in effect intellectually challenged and like today the newspapers that are their mouthpiece always demonstrate their limited capacity to think for themselves. After all they have been shovelling b*****t for decades now.

The problem is not what the newspapers print, it’s the fact that so many Scots still continue to buy it regardless of the utter trash on the pages inside.
This is where the real problem lies. Braindead idiots who, unfortunately, have a vote.

This is why you should never vote labour conservatives or lib dems 1 there only priority is England mainly it’s capital city 2 they don’t want Scotland to have powers that can change things as it could lead to scots saying we could be better off ourselves 3 they need Scotlands money hence there why they hate us but won’t let us go at any cost hypocrites the lot of those old English imperials.

Privately operated newspapers (which is all of them) are entitled to have a biased stance on anything. Sometimes it’s pushing their owner’s agenda, sometimes pandering to the prejudices of their readership. That should effect editorials and opinion pieces. That’s the way it’s always been.

However, when that extends into fake news, pure fact checking, simply regurgitated press releases, or plain plagiarism of someone else’s shit work, it isn’t acceptable. It begins to undermine the democratic process by misinforming and misleading voters. All we can do is call them out and boycott them.

It was only a few short weeks ago that Cliff Richards won his case against the BBC. Cue for lots of breast beating, wringing of hands and screeds of sanctimonious tosh from the BBC and MSM about how this would curtail press freedom etc. By ‘press freedom’ they meant the right to institute a feeding frenzy against someone on the slightest pretext.

I thought it was baloney then and nothing would stop them and this business with Mr Salmond just proves it.

So basically it looks like when Scotland’s Independence referendum is called due to #Brexit, given the BritNat Yoon media have no arguments left for Scotland remaining in a corrupt and damaging union, they are going to go with, ‘Someone said Alex did something’.

Next indyref we will be better prepared. No section 30 and English (NI & Welsh) MP’s cannot interfere. The next vote will be for the Sovereign people of Scotland to decide without outside interference.

It’s been proved beyond doubt. Labour, with its incestuous relationship with the British nationalist media, can’t be trusted. They’ll always put England first. The only reason Gordon Brown still gets away with his incoherent anti-Scottish BS is because of his friends in the media. Tractors.

I watched recently one of Indycar Gordon Ross youtube videos and one of the things he mentioned in one of them was that actually, Section 30 is a bit of a trap. It is not really “consent” for a referendum as such as I though it was, but a rather some form of compromise that both parties would accept the result no matter what. Well, I am sure I am not the only one that sees a problem with that: what if the result was unlawful, ie it was rigged? You just have to accept it anyway? Is that “the condition” the UK gov will have to make it legally binding?

If that is the case, then the only possible way section 30 will not become a trap from a hostile UK gov that is desperate to keep Scotland’s assets under its control is if the UK government via any of its operative systems (including the Civil Service, Broadcasters, MSM, UK wide political parties or politicians, Electoral Commission etc) has absolutely no control and no involvement whatsoever in our referendum or counting of the votes: in less words, if we can ensure that the UK government cannot possibly gerrymander our referendum. Now, can we ever do that with the level of infiltration and control of the UK civil service in our business? Memogate and Salmond issue clearly tell us just how much control this UK organ has over Scotland. Not just that, let’s remember the level of control exercised by the 3 leaders of the 3 main UK political parties at the time and “the vow”. None of the 3 leaders that signed the vow, actually represented a seat from Scotland, and yet, they were allowed to influence our vote.

The problem with section 30 according with Indycar Gordon Ross, if I understood correctly, is that it involves the accepting and implementing the result whatever means it is achieved and that is the reason Gordon believes is stopping the Scottish government to challenge the uK government with regards to the postal votes and the fact that Ruth Davidson appeared to have access to postal votes before anybody else and the fact that the ballot boxes were taken to England to be counted.

What are your views on this? I would be interested to knonw. Why do you think a section 30 is the best way to get to indyref 2 if we cannot challenge the result, so indeed rather than legitimising our right to self-determination, with the level of interference the UK gov is likely to have in our referendum, it is in fact a trap to ensure we are never allowed to fulfill it?

Since 2014 we have been made aware of several irregularities with the 2014 referendum, one of them that by the look of one of the links provided by somebody commenting in one of the previous forums, a good section of the Civil Service (not only in Scotland) was far from politically impartial in the matter of independence and were involved in projects to protect the union and even got a reward for it.

Other was the fact that apparently, ballot boxes were taken away from Scotland and counted somewhere else: this is what I find most outrageous of them all as it was a Scottish referendum. How can anybody explain that the ballots were counted in England? I mean, are the UK GE ballots counted in France?

And then of course we all watched the program where Ruth bragged about how happy she was to see a bigger proportion of NO votes within the Postal votes, even before the counts of the ballots cast on the day were completed. She made the announcement at around 22:00 on the 18th September 2014 on a BBC program. So when exactly did she have access to the votes and why? Ms Davidson was not even the main opposition party at the time.

So, my question is, can we ever ensure there will not be heavy interference from the Uk government in our referendum to be in a position to consider a section 30 order as “the best way to legitimise any indyref” without actually surrendering our right to self-determination?

“Then it is up to us to win it!”
Well, not really. If the Uk government is determined to interfere in our referendum and we are bound by the result no matter how dodgy, it is not really up to us to win it. Is it? It is up to the UK government to “allow us” to win it.

I think in light of the irregularities of indyref 2014 we need a bit more clarification of what this section 30 order actually means and how we can protect ourselves better from UK gov negative interference.

Also on the Broadcast Scotland programme the 3 presenters were discussing if the conspiracy theorists were maybe damaging or compromising the situation , after all the newspapers ( cough ) were only serving their readers .

So in effect most of us on here who believe this wanton destruction and demonising of a revered ex politician and FM’S reputation is not being orchestrated and organised by dark forces , but is merely being reported in the normal way.

In other words we’re all fcukin stupid , and the 3 commenters know there is no conspiracy and this is just how newspapers and broadcasters report things

I agree, it’s possible that an agreement to prop up a Corbyn UK government might provide a Sec.30 as quid pro quo. But there are several difficulties with that:

+ The WM FPTP electoral system is notoriously unstable. A few key constituencies in middle England can cause significant flips, making a close-enough balance very difficult to achieve.

+ There is a great deal of doubt that a Corbyn-led Labour Party can even come close to winning a UK GE. His fence-sitting over Brexit is just one example of a failure of leadership in a divided party. Plus the Tories and their faithful English media will use a prospective SNP partnership of some kind to intimidate Labour over it, just as happened before. “Tail wagging the dog” kind of thing. It totally unnerved them.

+ There is a difficulty for the SNP in pitching an election in UK terms, as we saw last time. Partly this is unavoidable, of course, for obvious reasons. But you can only get so far by pitching a “better mitigation” line. It’s still a matter of some debate, but many yes supporters, both inside and outside the SNP, believe the party lost more votes and WM seats than necessary last time because they didn’t offer a more robust line on independence in the face of a BritNat campaign that was relentless on the subject.

There just has to be a stronger line than merely to be “best buddies” with Corbyn. Not least because it disenchants supporters for whom the fringe left has no appeal, as may be the case in the NE and N. (I seem to recall Dr. Jim making a reference to this aspect a few threads back.)

I can’t help but think that the “yes-leftie” love affair with Corbyn is well past its sell-by date. Pure wishful thinking. Corbyn doesn’t give a damn for self-deterination at home, only everywhere else in the world.

However, in the event that another UKGE comes along and the planets all align perfectly, the option would of course be worth exploring. But I’m not very sure that Corbyn would bite even then. (See second reason above.) He has other agendas to pursue, and is as much a BritNat as anyone else.

I’m still hoping that we’ll be asserting ourselves more positively by other means, and not simply waiting for another UK election to come along when it suits our opponents.

Ayup! They’re clearly upset you know. Not at what we think of them, or don’t, as the case may be. That’s water off a ducks back to a journo. Also? They’ll get paid to screw up society whether we get upset with them or not. They’ll pick up that salary and perform as required till the day the last bod switches out the lights in editorial for the last time.

No, they’re upset that folk are listening to you. They’re upset that folk are paying attention to new media. They’re upset that they’re not where and what they used to be. They’re upset that there is more honest opinion and effort to research btl in any new meeja blog than they attempt in year.

But mainly they’re upset that the other side of a story or a differing opinion is getting heard and listened to.

For the next indy ref we need international observers, we need to tighten up the postal vote, this should be counted along with the ballot boxes, we need to ensure no ballot boxes are removed from Scotland, and everyone needs to make sure there is a number on there ballot slip and we need witnesses at all counts, witnesses travelling with the boxes being taken for counting, and we definitely need no leaking of numbers or sampling before the final vote. Purdah must be complied with – the DR again has a lot to answer for and they wonder why most of us would not use the DR to wipe our shoes.

Maybe RD wants to move to England before we win indy since she knows she is going nowhere up here, down in London she can hide among the other no hopers who are only in power because we have the worst opposition ever in the history of WM.

Thanks again for a well thought out and expressed article. Please keep up the good work although I would have thought it must be exhausting and draining to have so much MSM drivel to counter. I think we just have to hope that exhaustion will hit the eejits who have been spouting their garbage and we can all return our energies to the most important thing which is an independent Scotland.

Tinfoil hat time? Ah dinnae ken. But there’s something definitely in the air. We’re all waiting for these major political and social questions to be finally addressed. No wonder the britnat media is getting more and more hysterical.

Britnat hacks know they’re losing their influence on the public whilst members of the public know time is fast approaching for each and everyone of them to nail their individual colours to the mast.

In ignorant youth I voted Labour but they are the last party on earth that I’d consider voting for again.

The are sewer crawling vermin spreading disease and only interest in themselves.

Corrupt, Immoral, Egotistic and sycophantic.

If the Red Tory Red Top masquerading as a newspapers is suggesting Alex in in the gutter, they must be looking up at him with telescope.

They want to be a kangaroo court and throwaway the right to be innocent until proven guilty.

They want to stop Scottish Independence supporters to have the right to fund raise and for the Scot’s right to contribute with their own hard earned cash and their own free will.

They are also advocating that Scots should nor be allowed to fight for their reputation in Court unless that can fund it themselves.

That’s legal aide gone then and The Mail can wallow in fake accusations without redress.

The propaganda merchants of course support Labour’s Anti-Semitic outlook, the suppression of the Scots.

Labour’s Purcell “resigned” from his position pleading innocence in Corruption, Cronyism, and Drug Addiction.

Labour again- Police were called on December 14 after a passer-by spotted two men behaving inappropriately.
Officers found Labour’s Gordon Matheson committing an “indecent act” with his former partner. They spoke to the pair then reported them to the ­procurator fiscal.
A council source said: “Gordon has been told the fiscal has decided not to take any further action because of insufficient evidence a criminal act was committed.

If the UK establishment wasn’t totally corrupt, how then can an eye witness and 2 Police Offices reports of indecent acts in a public place be dismissed when he even admitted doing it???

“Other was the fact that apparently, ballot boxes were taken away from Scotland and counted somewhere else: this is what I find most outrageous of them all as it was a Scottish referendum.”

@Maria F: while I agree with your previous comments that the Tories are coordinating the smears against AS with the anti-Semitism stuff against Corbyn, there is no evidence that ballot boxes left Scotland for counting elsewhere.

What I find amusing is the utter stupidity of the Labour Party. While they are the human screen for the Tories in Scotland (e.g. the conduct of their MSPs, the Daily Record, Sunday Mail, etc) in their efforts to smite the Nats and save This Glorious Union, the Tory Press go into hyper-drive to smear Saint Jeremy, with help from El Gordo today, who appeared at a pro-Jewish event to scowl and walk back and forth like a sad polar bear at Edinburgh Zoo.

Extreme Zionists simply want to make any criticism of Israel illegal. Since many left-wing Jews in Israel despise Netanyahu and all his works and support a Two-State solution, they could automatically fall into this “anti-Semitic” category, which shows how mad and synthetic this whole smear is.

winifred McCartney says:
2 September, 2018 at 6:32 pm
“For the next indy ref we need international observers, we need to tighten up the postal vote, this should be counted along with the ballot boxes, we need to ensure no ballot boxes are removed from Scotland”

Is there any reason why the ballot boxes can actually not be opened and counted in situ with the postal votes once the polling places have closed? I have experience with elections in Spain for local and general votes and to the elections I attended as an observer, the ballot boxes were always opened by the Presiding officer in front of the other two officers and the observers (government representative and representatives of all political parties). The counting was done in front of all the observers and the ballots exhibited. Any of the observers could request a recounting if they were not convinced and if the Presiding Officer found a ballot with a confusing result, any observer could request to look at it. Everybody had their eyes fix on the box and the ballots, so there was no room for rigging. Then note of the number of ballots received, the numbers for each party and the number of null ballots was taken by the Presiding Officer in an official document which would be signed by the Presiding officer, the other 2 official members at the table (in Spain is 2 besides the Presiding Officer) and witnesses. The candidates or observers could request a copy of the document. Then the ballot box is taken by the Presiding Officer to the designated court with the document. Observers can of course follow in separate cars if they so wish all the way to the court and watching the Presiding officer handing the box to the court.
I do not understand why something like this cannot be done in Scotland. It would completely close down a door that is wide open for rigging by the UK gov. It would also speed up the counting.

@
galamcennalath says:
2 September, 2018 at 5:31 pm
Privately operated newspapers (which is all of them) are entitled to have a biased stance on anything. Sometimes it’s pushing their owner’s agenda, sometimes pandering to the prejudices of their readership. That should effect editorials and opinion pieces. That’s the way it’s always been.

I agree that a certain bias is allowable, in the sense you have a point of view to put and you print that. However I disagree that fact checking and other journalist tasks are only for reporting. (Not that we get that much these days). Opinion pieces often twist or even ignore facts and that is wrong but often seen. So while one may accept an editorial slant on the facts the facts themselves should not be abused or ignored.

” … But that might be calling ye Auld … which I of course would never do… LOL
In fact it’s usually you who does that!!!”

Ah! Yes! Liz g, but, as usual, there is a wee story behind that. I’ve been on many on-line things since the old Newsnet under the name Auld Bob. The thing was we had that many Roberts & Bobs in the family and we were country folks and all lived around the same area.

Anyway, my parents who married very young, Mum at 16 and Dad at 19, and by a quirk of fate, a World war and a government error that saw Dad conscripted to fight Germans and Mum mistakenly called up to do munitions work in the North of England,

However, having a young son, (me), she should not have been conscripted. This left me being brought up by my paternal grandparents.

Granny was the matriarch of the family and everyone ended up on the farm on Sundays. There was some confusion when either of the two most common family names were used. That was James and Robert.

A scheme was devised first using Robert, Robin & Bob and I initially copped for Robin. Things moved on and more Roberts joined the family gatherings. So we ended up with Auld, Auld Bob, Auld Bob & Bob.

However, people die and the line changed and Auld Auld Bob popped his clogs and every other Robert moved a rung up the ladder. So I became Auld Bob aged just under 25 years old. It became a family joke.

I adopted this as my on-line name but there is more to the tale.

When Mum was conscripted in WWII and sent to the North of England to work on munitions I got my first introduction to the still rather young political party that was the SNP. For it was none other than Arthur Donaldson, (who eventually became the SNP leader), and who is, even today, still accused by the Unionists of being a Nazi Supporter.

He wasn’t, but he did great work fighting against the War Departments policy of conscripting Scots women and sending then to England to work on munitions.

Well not really great ATM. My GP must have got the diagnosis correct for the medications initially cleared up all three health problems, So the prognosis seemed to also be correct.

Unfortunately, when the courses of medication ended the conditions returned. However, I had another series of tests and now await the results. So I expect the GP will then be able to prescribe something to help after she gets the test results back.

Anyway, I wouldn’t bother too much except I’m determined to not pop my clogs until I can do so in a free Scotland. I’ll then go quite happily. I’ve achieved everything else I set out to do and as a great man, (often), said, “I did it my way”.

“Anyway, I wouldn’t bother too much except I’m determined to not pop my clogs until I can do so in a free Scotland. I’ll then go quite happily. I’ve achieved everything else I set out to do and as a great man, (often), said, “I did it my way”.”

I worry about the crowd funding for AS. It was obviously a great way to register support for the man and helped vent some frustration but what now?
I can’t help but feel the Unionist press have been handed a big stick to beat us with (like they need any help).
I shudder at the thought of headlines such as ‘Cybernats bail out Salmond in ‘sex pest’ case’. AS is a smart man but he does have a rather bull in a china shop approach on occasion and this needs handling carefully. He would do well to learn from his protege as NS handles these situations brilliantly every time. She is a world leader in waiting, no doubt. She can be helped tremendously by the presence of a wise older statesman providing gravitas to the argument. AS needs to focus on being that and not slowly turning into George Galloway.

Robert Peffers @ 7.23
Ah well.. that’s the problem Robert
A free Scotland is imminent..
But ye must not leave us..unless our free Scotland has a decent Constution…
Ye did not fight all these years to let
Our Scotland become a mini me Westminster
A decent Country.. is our aim..
And a YES vote is just the start..we all must pay attention to how our Country developes, and a working knowledge of our history is going to be essential..
So take care of you my friend..
And keep on keeping on….X

I believe Jeremy Corbyn is building the *Jeremy Corbyn party* that has little or nothing to do with the one time Labour party

Jeremy Corbyn has a fascination and it would appear an admiration of parties around the world led and directed solely by one man in the position of authority and we’ve all seen where that leads whether he thinks he’s Mr Benign dictator or not these ideas never end well

If I were advising the SNP on anything it would be to keep their distance from this man and offer nothing as I think Jeremy Corbyn is possibly even more dangerous than the Tories, at least with the Tories you know for sure they’ll try and shaft you but their greed for money and power always supercedes their political ambitions so you know where you are with them, whereas Jeremy Corbyn is even more of an ideologue than half the Tories so not to be trusted under any circumstances with regards to deals regarding sovereignty for Scotland, he’ll shaft us in a heartbeat and smile benignly as he does it

The one saving grace about the Jeremy Corbyn party is (and it’s not very pc to say it but) his life span probably will not support the length of time he needs to bugger up the world before somebody else gets lumbered with the crappy job of reconstructing a Labour party from the ashes of Jeremy’s bonfire and that’ll take even more years Labour will have fallen behind the most incompetent Tory party of all time

The time for Scotland to do what needs to be done is now for if we miss this golden opportunity Scotland will never never ever get another one and Scotland will be no more, like Palestinians a people without a country, except history will show we did it voluntarily and we won’t even throw a stone at them

I would have thought though that any complaints against Former Ministers would only have been investigated by the employer, in this case the Civil Service, if the Former Minister was still an MSP and would likely still come into contact with employees of the Civil Service through their work

Ruby replies

I thought that was one of the strangest things about the process.
From what I gather it was Leslie Evans who proposed this amendment in Dec 17 and then Nicola Sturgeon agreed to it. ( I could be wrong as you never know if what you are reading is the MSM is true.)

Had Nicola Sturgeon not agree to it then the story would have been Nicola Sturgeon covers up for Alex Salmond etc etc etc.
That would have been a dream come true for Unionists ‘two birds with one stone’

Alex Salmond said in his interview on RT that he agreed with Former ministers being investigate. He couldn’t have said anything else.

Should be interesting to hear what comes out of the judicial review regarding this aspect of the complaints procedure.

One more thing, everybody and his dog knows Alex Salmond is an honorable man and the media knows it too so does anybody on the planet think that Alex Salmond would crowdfund his case by taking money from the people of Scotland under false pretences if he thought for one nano second he was guilty of something which could lead to the utter contempt of a nation if they thought they’d been lied to

If there’s one thing about Alex Salmond, he has principles and he never in his life has compromised himself for them, he cares about what people think of him

I now actually believe Salmond is just a useful mechanism to get to their real target, that is Nicol Sturgeon. Why else would the media spend more time trying to tie them together, the BBC even described him as ‘her mentor’. Salmond is not a MP, MSP, no not even a member of a party, they plan is to taint Nicola Sturgeon with any Salmond fallout.

Usual sexist stuff from the media actually, Sturgeon could never have reached these heights without a man driving her on is the message I take from them, particularly BBC Scotland.

We will see soon if the journalists which give the impression of being pro indy are worth their salt, or will they fall into line and produce the copy the owner wants. I suspect I know the answer.

@ maria F – they have a similar counting system in each polling station in Italy. There are never any doubts about, or complaints of, vote-rigging, in local, mayoral or general elections or referendums (which, by constitution, are only for abolishing laws in Italy).

I suppose if the UK insists on a general counting station, making a TV show of boxes being passed along a line of strapping young people,like pass the parcel, there’s no reason why they can’t have their show – as long as the Counting Station re-count tallies are used only to confirm local polling station counts.

Robert Peffers – an idea. Why don’t you get together with http://www.indyposterboy.scot and get a few thousand flyers printed up with your favourite lines about the Union and you or some volunteers can put them through people’s doors? The costs are surprisingly low. Nothing too wordy. I’m doing leaflets myself from this source and some of the ones I haven’t chosen contain so much reading I think most folk would just give it a glance and give up. Something eye catching and to the point. Just a suggestion.

There is two interesting facts to emerge about the civil service revealed in recent days.

Firstly the change in investigative protocol merely a few weeks before the Salmond complaints. Was this protocol changed to accommodate a complaint that they knew was in the pipeline and wanted to make sure it succeeded. The timing is highly suspicious.

Secondly the reported political involvement of the civil service in the 2014 referendum, and rewards for helping to achieve a no vote.

So with this in mind I will take any future claims of civil service neutrality as laughable. They are effectively an arm of the UK state working against those in Scotland who want independence.

Time the Scottish parliament had civil servants answerable purely to Holyrood.

As a Scot and an SNP supporter I want nothing to do with Labour. Labour and Jeremy Corbyn have NOTHING to offer Scotland. Let them stew in their own battles. Scotland needs people that put Scotland first.

Some Wingers seem to have short memories. They think that the Westminster Establishment are attempting to use Salmond to get at Nicola. Have they forgotten the Establishment tried for Nicola directly when she revealed the details of her miscarriage.

Hamish100..
Whatever the details of AS’s case, the whole thing is a distraction that Yes doesn’t need. Months of unpleasant headlines will follow which as we know from the EUref, carry more weight with undecided voters than complex economic arguments.
I’m just worried about where this could go and the ammunition the Unionists will feel it gives them. So far, the SNP leadership have had to defend their policies against one of their own and then respond to suggestions of PP civil war…and that was just the first week.

Aye, indeed, the civil service stuff…influencing the 2014 indyref etc…

Arthur Stramash has engaged Eddie Reader in a Twitter exchange about it all and I’m sure this place had an article about it at the time. It certainly wasn’t a ‘secret’ – they seemed dead chuffed about it all!

The civil war thing has been a source of hilarity on social media. I don’t think many outside of a few desperately hopeful politically motivated journalists still take it seriously.

Of course these things are difficult but Damien Green (who he?) was accused of assault, watching porn on his work computer, interviewed by police and if I recall correctly sent his aide to go and buy sex toys. He had to resign from the Cabinet for lying to May. He is still an MP. Is anyone determining their vote on his behaviour or the fact that he may well reappear as a Minster at some point? The world seems to have forgotten him already.

The press have gone into hyper mode and done this to death in the space of week. The Guardian has 13 stories on their Scotland page. The public can only take so much before they want a fresh scandal.

@Jock McDonnell who said “The UK must, if it is a true democracy, have acceptance of & a mechanism for, its own dissolution”.

Going from the example of Ireland (1916 and onwards)the mechanism for the dissolution of the UK was to fight them physically, go through executions, imprisonment and internment, hunger strikes, get into negotiations and agree a compromise set-up (26 counties instead of 32).
This happened after the irish people realized constitutional nationalism was going nowhere as Westminster would always support the Unionists.

In the 6 counties of NI the same situation obtained from 1969 onwards for 30 years – civil strife, imprisonment and internment, bombs and shootings, hunger strikes, negotiations and a compromise Agreement (the 1998 belfast/Good Friday Agreement).

I do realise that nobody in Scotland, and certainly no leader, wants in any way to go through similar horrors. Nor should the Scots be subjected to such brutality. We have to find something that works and at the same time safeguards our people.

So Scotland will have to devise another way of dissolving the Union with the Kingdom of England and Wales, whether it’s withdrawal from the Treaty of Union, IndyRef2 or something else.

Resume: I was comparing the Holyrood Harassment Policy with Westminster’s and see that there are numerous differences from anonymity if you are south of the border to being involved if you are the alleged “perpetrator”: Getting access to details of the incident and so on.

Alex Salmond is no longer a politician, so I’d reckon when complaints were made about him in January 2018 the complainants should have been pointed in the direction of Police Scotland.

If that Civil Service, Leslie Evans, amendment is allowed to stand FOI requests should be issued to see if other complaints have been made previously and dealt with. And how far back can they go? 2013 or 1999?

“That same Kezia Dugdale, alert readers will recall, is also protecting a number of alleged sex pests in Scottish politics by refusing to identify them despite claiming to know about their history of sexual assaults on women. She, like Lennon, is doing far more to convince women that there’s no point in reporting sexual harassment than Alex Salmond could ever dream of.”

This paragraph gets to the heart of the Labour Party’s attitude to voters, as yet again we see them treating the well-being of women, with utter contempt, while repeatedly accusing others of not standing up for women’s rights.

The equal pay dispute in Glasgow, a shining example of this pathetic hypocrisy.

As far as the Labour Party is concerned women are like the new poor, used and exploited as voting fodder.

There was reports of many women resigning from the UK Party, ( not the ‘Branch Office’ ) as a result of Labours stance on Gender Issues, so I hope the hypocrisy being displayed by the Labour MSP’s mentioned in Revs article, in particular, allowing sex pests within their own party to continue unchallenged, will convince any woman who are still votes for them in Scotland, to reconsider their voting choices.

I have never bought a paper in over thirty years with this shit they are now calling journalism I can honestly say I’ll never ever buy another one.

A few years ago I posted on Wings a suggestion that all newspaper sales (shops) should be picketed and a mass cancellation of the BBC License (even if only for a couple of months) especially in the lead up to a crucial GE or IndyRef, what are the feelings about that now given the recent events ?

To advance the Independence Cause, Civil Disobedience must be surely be the next step especially as Yessers have no access to mainstream media, the word must get out to ALL of the Scottish People. Why am I saying this ? There are Yes Groups and SNP Branches where the vast majority of folk in it who have never been to a single march or rally, have never heard of WoS, however they have a deep mistrust of torys and Westminster, what is need is more ACTIVISTS.

The DISSOLVE the UNION Message needs to be broadcast widely, there are more of us than them (you know who they are), time to use our sovereignty and time to use the Mandate.

” … Thanks for the compliment. I have always managed to laugh at things. Especially my own misfortunes. A bit like the old WWII cartoon. The soldier in battle dress with a leg & an arm blown off and swathed in bandages. The punchline was, “It only hurts when I laugh”.

” … I read almost all the posts and links but enjoy yours especially”

Best always remember, then, that daft sense of humour of mine. Even my family can never tell when I’m serious or pulling their legs. Mind you even when I am pulling their legs there is usually a grain of truth in it.

The last communication I had with Alex Salmond showed he can be a bit nippy-sweety, especially as we had helped secure the 450 votes he and the SNP needed to win a Holyrood constituency. I am always wary of Alex now, but still respect him as a politician.

Whereas the putrid Sunday Mail is something I will NEVER buy again after reading this torrent of bile.

From now on, when we re-open a shop, we shall avoid selling any newspapers. 98% of them are bias bull$hit. I like he National, but that can be bought at many other outlets. So by taking a stand and refusing to retail the utter excrement these febrile word twisters peddle, their total demise and bankruptcy of the newspaper crapfest will be hastened.

Spot on Patrick. I noticed that Monica Lennon had reported that their attitude has to change as when “equal rights / feminism” issues are mentioned they are inclined to roll their eyes.

Their actions / words speak louder than facial expression of course with their treatment of female workers (Equal Pay cases) over many decades and with the Labour Party politician who groped M Lennon as one of his colleagues stated “that was your fault for coming over here and getting him excited.” Mindset of dinasaurs.

Robert Peffers, a very belated thank you. I often suspected that you might be ‘Auld Bob’ from the old Newsnet, but never liked to ask.

Anyhow, thanks to your postings on Newsnet back in 2010/11, you got me digging deeper into politics/Scotland’s history etc. Up until then, I could barely have told you the name of the PM!

I’ve always believed in independence for Scotland even although I worked abroad for many years. I was brought up not to talk about politics so I never really knew what was going on, nor to be honest cared that much, too busy just getting on with life, I suppose.

Anyhow, Robert a big hug and a thank you for wakening me up. And, thanks to guys like you for doing all the hard work in the early days of the SNP.

Here I go again at the end of the queue,getting older.For all that has been written,there some 36 sex pests in Westminster,quite some variety,they prop up T.M and the Conservative government, the whips control that they vote for the party,a sort of voting fodder under strict control, OR spill the beans, that would leave the Tories at least 36 votes short of a majority,!(Bye,Bye!),what happens when the D.U.P. get the jitters?? They are in NO position to judge or criticise,never mind the total rubbish written in their English rags.

Shinty,
‘Auld Bob’ goes way back before that into newsgroups days (pre Mosaic/Netscape/IE) as do I. The newsgroup soc.culture.scottish was started by Craig Cockburn in c 1992 (from memory). Auld Bob became a regular contributor.

It’s funny how these allegations against Salmond arose just after the huge increase in SNP membership. It may be conspiracy theory, but it occurred to me: What member of the UK establishment might have put them up to this to sew division in the party?

The story that former MP, former leader of the SNP and former First Minister of Scotland in it’s first SNP government and first majority government ARE, in fact, newsworthy.

As usual ‘The Record’ takes what could have been a genuinely newsworthy public interest story and drags it down to their own level ie the gutter.

It’s a shame, they could have held the moral high ground and reported this properly, perhaps noting how the procedure is not only unfair to those accused but to the accuser and is FAR from transparent.

It also could have taken the point that there would be no way for this ‘disciplinary procedure’ to have any effect on anyone found guilty. NB the old ‘losing your pension’ trope is often touted but in the Civil Service Pension Scheme the only way to lose your pension is to commit Treason, literally. All other sackings still see your pension rights reserved. And I don’t care what anyone says – I’ve read the Ts & Cs on the pension, so there is no sanction for what he is accused of.

I read with interest Craig Murray’s piece on his accusations (sexual) and how the procedure worked ie he didn’t know WHO accused him etc, couldn’t tell ANYONE and couldn’t bring forward witnesses or their statements. His point being it’s an all too easy way to smear someone, the smears stick but the later quiet dropping of the accusation tends not to make a splash.

Anyway, I can make no statement on Salmond’s guilt or not, but the press are sadly too eager to lap up anything salacious and miss the point of how the system has failed everyone in this scenario. Our press lets us down badly…

They must be still reeling from having their beloved OO march rerouted! Of course the OO withdrew from the march because spitting on priests is what it’s all about for them, isn’t it?

And an apology, from me, on behalf of all Greenock. I see the ‘Greenock Britannia Loyal’ are quoted. This tiny minority of tiny minded individuals are indeed a tiny majority. They operate out of an old building in a state of disrepair in Terrace Road. The disrepair is due to the low number of members they actually have. They are so full of hate they even hate each other. They fell out with their own Orange Band and now the band (here’s how it links to the story) march from the Greenock Rangers Supporters Club (they also practise on their flutes and big drums there too)

So, after YEARS of Rangers saying how football and religion should be separate, it appears the local supporters club didn’t get the memo. I KNOW that the football club will say that the Supporters Club is run by its members etc but really, all they need to do is write to them and tell them it’s making the football club look bad or even ask them to take the ‘Rangers’ name off the door. Truth is, THIS is how the club gets it’s support.

NB I have the misfortune to live close to BOTH of these clubs but can HAPPILY report that the marches (if you can call them that) attract numbers of no more than 30, although sadly you see children being marched on them.

Its time women carried an old fashioned hat pin in the hand bag and used it when receiving any thing nasty or have a brick in their hand bag and if that fails buy a taiser and point it at the man’s nether region. time women ganged up on the men in an office.

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